ATtiny85 EMF Detector

Story

This is a simple tutorial to create an EMF detector. You can use Arduino for this job, but is better use a microcontroller called Attiny85. It is possible program it throe the Arduino interface.

What is a Magnetic Field [from Wikipedia]

An electromagnetic field (also EMF or EM field) is a physical field produced by electrically charged objects. It affects the behavior of charged objects in the vicinity of the field. The electromagnetic field extends indefinitely throughout space and describes the electromagnetic interaction. It is one of the four fundamental forces of nature (the others are gravitation, weak interaction and strong interaction).

The field can be viewed as the combination of an electric field and a magnetic field. The electric field is produced by stationary charges, and the magnetic field by moving charges (currents); these two are often described as the sources of the field. The way in which charges and currents interact with the electromagnetic field is described by Maxwell’s equations and the Lorentz force law. From a classical perspective in the history of electromagnetism, the electromagnetic field can be regarded as a smooth, continuous field, propagated in a wavelike manner; whereas from the perspective of quantum field theory, the field is seen as quantized, being composed of individual particles.

Step 1: The circuit

First step is create a circuit on the breadboard. Use a breadboard like in photo and try the circuit before solder it on protoboard. After the test you can use a protoboard to connect the attiny85 to leds and antenna.

Step 3: Install Arduino IDE and programming Attiny

And select the previous installation of Arduino IDE 1.0.6. This is very IMPORTANT because with the new version of Arduino IDE is impossible to program the Attiny85. After the installation of attiny85 package you can select the Attiny models.